German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has had to cancel her trip to Australia due to plane trouble. A State Department spokesperson said this month: “Due to a mechanical problem, we have to return to Abu Dhabi for security reasons.” Baerbock’s plane had initially landed there for refueling.
The plane took off again immediately after the stopover in Abu Dhabi. Three minutes later, the problem was spotted in the air and they had to turn back for safety reasons. The captain had previously announced via the loudspeaker on board that there were problems with the retraction of the landing flaps. After landing, the airport fire brigade escorted the Airbus. The captain spoke of a normal landing, which is practiced in the simulator for such a situation. He didn’t ask for the fire department escort. The captain said he has been a pilot for 35 years and has been with the Air Mission for 30 years. Such an error had not occurred in all that time. As a result, one of the two aft landing flaps was defective.
It is not yet clear how the German minister will continue her journey. Originally, the Green politician wanted to fly to Sydney from the Australian capital Canberra on Tuesday evening. The flight to New Zealand was scheduled for Thursday morning local time. Thursday evening we should travel on to Fiji.
Not the first accident for Baerbock pilots
It is not the first time that the German foreign minister has been delayed in her travels. It wasn’t until mid-May that Baerbock was stranded in Doha in the desert emirate of Qatar due to tire damage to her government Airbus and was forced to involuntarily extend her trip to the Gulf region.
However, other members of the government have also experienced unplanned stays due to malfunctions of a machine used by the German armed forces. For example, the Air Force’s Airbus “Konrad Adenauer” had to turn back in November 2018 with then German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and then Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) on board en route to the G20 summit in Buenos Aires. Among other things, the radio system was paralyzed.
Source: Krone
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